Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>
> Alan,
>
> unfortunately, not too many 'tech guys' understand the Media biz
> all too well. I'll try to put this into concise terms here:
>
> consolidation = 'information richness'--.
>
> in other words, if media is owned by few- then obviously the
> overall choices are diminished. The basis of our information then
> takes on a less diverse character, and typically in order to maintain
> this situation, the 'illusion of news' needs to be propagated. So we
> fill the viewers heads will all sorts of useless topics like Britany
> Spears, etc. because we have to report *something* [1] and we employ
> people with nice haircuts and terse voices to give the illusion of
> importance, because without some kind of information to fill our
> heads, we will have the feeling that we are being uninformed, in which
> case the program has no or an opposite effect. The last failsafe is
> to prevent the 'media consumer' from essentially smashing their TV
> set.
>
> Martin @ FCC has persued a consistent policy of promoting
> monopolization of the media, often in direct opposition to public
> protest. Specifically Martin's treatment of the newspaper medium will
> have a drastic effect.
>
> For a background in these topics I recommend reading Walter Lippman.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
>
> Also Dan Gillmor is somewhat of a figure in this realm. He now
> works at ASU.
>
> http://www.dangillmor.com/
>
> -jmz
>
>
>
> [1] And appealing to your reproductive instincts is perhaps the most
> effective way to provide this stimulus.
Thanks for the information. I'll look at them later but I think I get
your gist. And I agree that less sources of information and so on leads
to the "illusion of news."
Alan
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